Healing Process
by Libek
Summary: Post-R2. They're trying their best to move on. Obvious spoilers are obvious.


For the first few weeks, she pretends not to know who he is any better than anyone else does. It's safer that way: the world still watches, and in front of the world she must call him Zero. In front of the world, she must be nothing but deeply grateful for his services in ridding them all of her mad despotic brother.

But when the world has settled down a little and they are alone in a room of the simple, beautiful cottage that has become her home -- when he has wheeled her over to the priceless antique table where she now takes her afternoon tea -- Nunnally catches his wrist before he can take his leave of her the way he has every other day.

"Suzaku," she says, and is very aware of how he stiffens in response. "Please. I would love some company."

It takes him much too long to answer, and he slips out of her grasp first, but to his credit the voice he finally manages is deeper. Gruff and muffled by the mask, it's almost passable for the man he's supposed to be.

"Suzaku Kururugi is dead."

He says it very softly. More gently than she was really expecting. She wishes he hadn't pulled his hand away, because she would like to know whether the lack of regret she thinks she hears is genuine. She wishes he would take off his mask.

But it's still much too soon for that, she can tell. So she settles her hands reluctantly in her lap and accepts his rejection, closing her eyes against the sight of him as he crosses the room to open the door and leave her there alone.

*

Part of her aches to see his face.

There _are_ photographs -- even though his and her brother's pictures have been destroyed or defamed by their fellow students, some people know better. Milly, certainly; or Rivalz, or Kallen, or Gino. But to sneak a glimpse of a photograph feels a little like cheating, and Nunnally knows she would want a copy to keep.

She doesn't like to imagine Suzaku's reaction, should he ever find it.

But he doesn't know what it's been like these last seventeen years, wondering what he looks like.

Suzaku was not the first person she met as only a voice in the darkness, but he was the first one her brother had been unable to describe to her. After months of seeing the world through his eyes and his eloquent words, she had finally been rendered well and truly blind.

_He's... Well... He's impossible!_

In the years since, she has heard more than one unkind description of a Japanese man: pretty enough to be Britannian women, but with skin the same yellowbrown color as a bruise and eyes that were squinty, untrustworthy. Hairless like children, small and delicate as ornate dolls.

They don't match her memories of Suzaku, who even at the age of ten was the strongest person she had ever met. She can't imagine he could really be more beautiful than her brother.

She just wishes she knew for sure. He's one of the most important people in her life, and sometimes she thinks she would trade her sight and be blind again for just one chance to touch his face without the mask and even learn it that way.

He has no idea. For now, Nunnally keeps it that way.

*

For the first month, they can't go to his grave. It's safer that way: the world still remembers, and in front of the world she cannot mourn him. In front of the world, she would have to spit on his grave if by some accident she came across it. Even though he is her brother and she has the right to mourn no matter what kind of man he was, the risk is too great. His blood bought this peace, and they will preserve it.

But when the world has settled down a little more, they choose a quiet Sunday evening and make their way to the royal cemetery -- the cemetery where Suzaku, too, is buried. They should know better, but her breath still catches and his hands on her wheelchair still clench audibly.

The grave marker has been desecrated.

It isn't like any of the other tombs in the cemetery, isn't as grand or ornate -- Suzaku's own dwarfs it. She supposes that when they made it, they were all hoping the simple, inoffensive stone plaque would go unnoticed. All they had engraved was his name and the dates of his life.

But someone must have found it and thought it needed editing. _Lelouch vi Britannia_ is not enough; he is also, apparently, the Murderer. The Demon. The Mind-Raper--

Her eyes mist over and she closes them quickly, shutting out the other words crudely carved into his grave marker. She tells herself she must be thankful they left the earth itself undisturbed, that they haven't stolen her brother's corpse or strung it up somewhere.

Suzaku has never before touched her without being asked, but he does it now, laying his hand on her trembling shoulder, and Nunnally is so intensely grateful that she can't speak. She wishes he would take off his gloves.

But it's still much too soon for that.

*

Part of her aches for his touch.

He is her constant companion, as he was in the year when her brother was forced to forget her and everything else, but he avoided touching her then and he avoids touching her now. The gloves he wore then as the Knight of Seven and the gloves he wears now as Zero keep him at a careful, subtle distance.

She knows he thinks he's doing it to protect her, to keep her pure and unsullied by the filth he imagines on his bare skin. Perhaps he even suspects that the warmth and humanity of her touch would make him feel like less of a monster, and he isn't ready to let that happen yet. Suzaku wants to be alone with his pain, to suffer through in silence like it's some kind of penance for killing her brother.

But he doesn't seem to realize that, by being alone with his pain, he is also leaving her alone with hers.

Nunnally doesn't think he means to punish her, too.

Are his palms still rough from so many summers spent climbing trees? She remembers his fingernails as short and round and blunt, trimmed neatly first by his father and then by military requirement, the skin of his arms as smooth and warm even when he smelled like salt and fish; have those things changed? He is nineteen, now. Is there hair on his arms, does he have stubble on his chin? Or is that one piece of Britannian propaganda true?

She wants to touch his hair, to run her fingers through it and see whether it is still as wild as she remembers her brother complaining when they were children.

He has no idea. For now, Nunnally keeps it that way.

She doesn't like to imagine his reaction to this, either.

*

For the first few months, he speaks to her hardly more than he speaks to anyone else. It's safer that way: the world still listens, and in front of the world he must not sound like any one specific person. In front of the world, he must be an impossible ghost, a reminder of a symbol with which everyone can identify equally. This, she suspects, is why her brother didn't leave him a voice-modifier to make him sound like the Zero he had been. Or possibly because he knew that his impostor could never have brought himself to use such a device.

But when the world has settled down as much as it is going to and winter has come, when it's the fourth of December and she is struggling by herself to collect all of the ingredients into her lap so that she can mix them at the lower dining table, Nunnally loses her grip on the bag of flour and is surprised when he is suddenly there beside her to catch it.

Even through the mask, she can feel his questioning eyes -- what is she doing, why would she go to so much trouble when she knows she has only to ask -- and she can't look at him.

"It's his birthday tomorrow," she whispers. "I'd like to bake a cake for it."

At first, there's only silence; silence and his gaze weighing heavily on her face. Nunnally lets out a breath, wondering what she really expected, after all this time. She takes the flour from him and begins to wheel away.

"You know it'll never be precise enough for him."

And what strikes her most about it is that this time, he isn't trying to disguise his voice.

*

All of her aches to be with him.

Not in that way -- although yes, in that way, if he'd have her, even though she's never seen his face. But mostly she just wants him to be _here_, with her, for her, and he hasn't been yet. He's been in the earth, underneath his tombstone, just like her brother. Every day, it hurts her.

He has no idea. For now, Nunnally keeps it that way.

It's still too soon, and she knows this. But she also knows they are making progress. She knows that someday soon, he _will_ take off his gloves, and then maybe even his mask. At least when it's just the two of them.

She can't ask for more than that.


End file.
